Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Trump doesn't get replaced by anyone. Vance is a stuffed shirt who may be a good instrument for the Project 2025 people but is never going to command respect of the MAGA faithful. MAGA will follow the blueprint that many cults of personality do that, when the leader passes away, someone with close familial ties will take over as leader - or not even leader, maybe steward would be more apt - and give speeches in between two gargantuan red banners that stretch from the roof to the floor and Donald's stern gaze emblazoned upon them.

What's maddening about the Democrats is that it's almost as if there is a hope among their party elite that they'll get back in just based on how crazy Trump and MAGA are. That only barely worked last time. It probably won't work this time, and even if it did, they'd do absolutely nothing about MAGA or the socio-economic forces that drive it, and it would come back at them even more vengefully.

It's like the Democratic party still don't understand what MAGA is and what they are with respect to it. MAGA is an insurgent reactionary movement done in a way only America can where it's not really led by the ordinary people, but by a gaggle of canny billionaires. The Democratic party and the rump of sane Republicans are the existing establishment. Existing establishments don't tend to do well in this scenario, historically speaking.

We can scoff at the cult like mindset of MAGA and look down our noses at the so-called Christian Nationalism of leading supporters, but they have a unity and determination that seems irresistible when you contrast it with the rainbow of different interests and lukewarm secularism that powers the Democrats. The Democratic party is going to have to fundamentally break itself down and rebuild itself in order to make itself a force that can truly address MAGA, but that work should have been done ten years ago. Time, now, is a little bit short…

He's currently in the process of sacking every single US military head who might have the idea of moving against him. By the time he's finished, there's more chance of them moving to arrest Hillary Clinton.

That's actually a good point. He's only in the job a few weeks, but is already filling the military top brass with Trump / MAGA flunkies (perhaps he's quite alert to the dangers of a military coup further down the line).

you don’t need a military coup, all you needed was enough GOP senators to vote against Trumps crazy nominees but they all voted in favour because Musk threatened they would be primiared if they didn’t

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories but I could well believe this one and it would explain a lot.

A simple google of Trump and Russias relationship will bring up tonnes of evidence going back decades.

As much as I absolutely hate Trump, I've learned a long time ago not to take Internet "evidence" as truth. Both sides can be guilty of embellishment (although the right are way worse at it).

Unfortunately we now live in a world where it is becoming impossible to discern truth from misinformation.

That sort of copper fastens my second point. In the past something like that would easily sink a candidate, but unfortunately now, with the **** show the Internet and social media has made of obfuscating the truth, we are left where we are now. It is scandalous that "truth" has become tribal. It's impossible to fight against that type of brain washed ideology.

I actually believe that a large percentage of Republicans hate Trump but are afraid to "come out of the closet" due to threats. If there were braver men in the ranks they would surely have tried to bury him with the above evidence. As regards the Democrats, I have defended them because they are without doubt being judged to a different level than maga, but they do appear to be incompetent at building a coherent message and putting out decent personalities to become the poster boys of the movement.

It has developed further - there are now two former KGB officers making the same claim - the original Yuri Shvets, and now an ex very senior KGB officer from Kazakhstan, one Alnur Mussayev.

Two amounts to a large plume of smoke, in my eyes.

Everyone should remember that Musk was in secret regular contact with Putrid for two years and consider that the first thing he does with every government agency he targets is demand immediate unfettered computer access.

Good thing the US security services are now run by a cleaning lady, in this hour of most dire need. All the most competent people in the administration being fired while unbelievably incompetent people are being appointed to head every major agency. It's actually surreal.

Remember the Trojan Horse? It's possible the US is now completely and utterly f*cked.

I would be optimistic enough from the European viewpoint. The EU is much more powerful than Russia, but may need to ramp up defence spending to fend off any threat from them.

The major change in the world order (and it is indeed a huge change) is that the US is no longer a friend or ally of anyone in the West and is now cosying up to Russia and even China instead.

Wars America have lost

American Algerian war

War of 1812

Korean War

Vietnam

Bay of Pigs

War on Drugs

War in Afghanistan

War on Terror

Cold War (claimed victory in 1989, actually won by the Russians in 2025)

if it'd been a male governor, this wouldn't have happened. Kinziger pointed out what a coward Trump is, but bullying women is his thing (say Hi, Ivana).

I think Ukraine should ask for any international bidders for the mineral rights, specifically from China!

And to think people thought Trump would be good for Ukraine when they decided to vote for him. Idiots.

I know it goes against everything in the military rulebook and I'm also aware that militaries are rarely locations of leftwing or even centrist views (unless that is part of the ideology of the state) , especially in the domestic context,but it seems strange that even a right-leaning American military could ,in a few years, come to regard the increased closeness of this administration to a power that is in the direct lineage of an adversary that most of their fathers spent their lives opposing, with such equanimity and conversely, begin to regard with hostility states that were the allies of the US in the time of their grandfathers and were allies until recently. I know that there is no rule that one state has to be either an eternal ally or enemy of another, but many American military families in all branches of the armed forces must have had deceased or even still living family that worked with Britain and Canada in the Second World War. Its hard to believe that all top brass will memory hole this tradition and history because MAGA wants to make nice with Russia.

Worth noting that the US used to oppose Russia because Russia's ideology at the time was left-wing. It was also authoritarian, but the main sticking point is that it was very left-wing. Aversion to left-wing politics is maybe the US's most consistent value and, if anything, has increased in the time of Trump.

Now that Russia is a right-wing capitalist oligarchy which seeks to eliminate social liberalism, the US right wing can't get enough of the place and its leader.

So, in short, the US right-wing didn't change. Russia did.